Ai Mori
Ai took the stranger's hand and her world collapsed like a box folding in on itself. Sounds muffled and light grew dim. What felt like seconds later she awoke in a crystal prison. Her father's words echoed back at her like a living ghost in her mind.
Useless! I guess failure really is genetic.
Even now her eyes burned at the memory. His words struck her like a physical force. She had to be better. She had tried her best. Sleepless nights, caffeine pills and a bed that never knew her weight. But it still wasn't enough. Maybe it never would be.
She had spent so long reaching for the sun and had only blistered fingers and burnt wings to show for it.
Now, as she slowly drifted through a sea of human snowflakes, she wished those wings were more than metaphor.
Only one was free of their confines, a man who looked as though he was perpetually late. Ruffled hair in thinning strands as though he pulled it out quicker than it could grow. Clothes so wrinkled it had to be a stylistic choice. He stared up at her, recognition in his eyes as though he knew her. Ai didn't feel the same, he was as strange to her as everything else. His hand stretched to grasp hers across the room, and to her surprise her fingers twitched in response.
People began to wake around her, hundreds of them. Fingers scratched, fists smashed and silent screams collided with crystal walls uselessly.
Ai paused, closed her eyes and took a breath. Focus. She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings, making careful notes of everything she saw.
Massive blue rock in the center of the room. Nine shadowy figures reeking condescension. Large windows wide as a person and as tall as a building dotted the walls. Outside she could see cave walls as black as night lit by blue fire. Water cascaded down stone outcroppings bouncing over them like a slinky down steps. Trees, a type she had never seen before, grew from the wall itself. She marveled at their tenacity. Even here below ground they thrived against all odds. She reigned in her thoughts before they turned self destructive.
Breath. Focus.
Finally, around the room, there were 8 doors, each as tall as three men, a symbol engraved in a metal plate above each of them.
Quickly, Ai committed them to memory.
A shield, a flame, a galaxy, a monster, a skull, a brain, a golden bar, and a shimmering mirror.
The ground approached her and she saw she was descending. The crystal disappeared and gravity snapped back into place as though it simply forgot to exist for a moment.
The rest of the room was freed as well, leaving a crowd of confused and angry people staring up at this captors.
Ai tried to fade into nothing, willing herself to disappear. She knew how men reacted when things were out of their control, and she didn't want to be in the path of the coming storm.
Chatter rose up from the crowd. Neighbors asking questions, some threatening others, and a few like Ai trying to retreat into the shadows. Through the crowd she saw the one man who hadn't had a prison looking around, as confused as anyone else. Their eyes locked and he tried to push towards her, but the crowd closed and he was gone.
As the noise rose to a tumult it was just as quickly silenced; snuffed out like a candle. She felt… something coming from the robed figures above. She wasn't sure how, but they were responsible for the quiet. She tried to speak, felt the vibration in her throat, but heard nothing, as though the air around them was coerced into quiet.
"Welcome…. Students." One of the cloaked men called. He stood in the groups center, four to either side of him, keeping a safe distance. His voice drummed out, a deep growling baritone. "Thank you all for agreeing to join us for our competition."
Ai had indeed agreed to an opportunity. A man stitched together from shining smiles and dazzling eyes appeared from the shadows themselves. She was nursing her emotional wounds when he appeared. Eyes dark with tear stained makeup. Bruises left from her father's words.
You were our last hope, and everyday you disappoint me more.
It is only because you fall short that I know you're truly my daughter.
Even now, she winced at the words, a pain echoed in her own mind.
The stranger offered her a tissue, wiping away her tears and offered her a solution. A competition between those with the brightest futures. Whatever that meant. Ai wasn't sure how she had been chosen or how he had found her. Her transcripts? Her research papers? It didn't matter. It was all a shade above mediocrity. In other words, worthless.
Her gaze returned to the house where her family slept beneath burdens too heavy to bear. This man offered her salvation. A buoy to grasp in troubled waters. She didn't hesitate to grab it. Next thing she knew she was captive in a glass casket.
"Your whole lives you have been lied to. Magic is real," His hand opened in front of him and a roaring flame burst to life. "But it is dying."
The flame just as easily was snuffed out."
"The end of an era is upon us, and the fault is our own. For too long we have hoarded the secrets of the Arcane. That ends today."
He paused, letting the words sink in. Though he hovered in the air, he shuffled in place as though standing on stone.
"Magic… is like a muscle. Without use it begins to fade; to atrophy. We have brought you all here to give birth to magic anew. To carry on the torch we let die."
Around the room the crowd bounced between incredulity and excitement. Others had a fire in their eyes. A hunger.
"Over the coming month you will all be tested. Pushed to your very limits! Given access to resources and powers that your peers could only dream of. But not all of you will make it. In fact, many won't. But those still standing at months end will find themselves at the forefront of a new generation. You will be granted a wish as well as tutelage with the greatest minds magic has ever known. You will usher in a new era of magic. One that benefits not just yourselves, but the whole world."
He drifted lower, hovering just 10 feet over the crowd, almost close enough to reach. Darkness still clung to his face, only thin strands of a grey beard peeking out.
"The first test will commence momentarily. As Blanks, you are without magical talent. Not because you're incapable, but because you are untrained. It is a part of you that hasn't awakened. We're going to change that. Throughout the Octaviary," He said, gesturing at the castle around him, "There are 300 catalysts. Powerful, rare, and necessary artifacts that will awaken the mage within you."
Ai's breath began to come fast and shallow. Overwhelming wasn't a strong enough word for what this was. Everything she had ever learned of the world was a lie. Her whole life she had been honing her mind, her body, everything and anything to make herself exceptional. To rise above the crowd. And all this time…. All this time, she was still behind.
She nearly cried with frustration and hope. Frustrated that it had been hidden from her and hope that she could soon grasp it.
"You'll find from a quick count however, that there are 400 of you."
The crowd looked at each other; realization set on the room like a stone. The looks of hunger around her multiplied. A man fifteen feet from her, covered in rip-cord muscle, a shotgun over his back and a scar dragged across his face like a finger through sand, stared at her.
Ai took a step back, and his eyes pierced through the crowd, a smile peeling at his lips.
There was a whip crack of energy, a flash of dark light and a belt appeared around her waist. It was leather with a dark metal hollow at its center. There was no clasp or apparent way to take it off. It constricted around her waist, squeezing almost to the point of pain.
"You have 3 hours to secure a stone, insert it into your belts and return to this room." The man said, his tone final. He made a gesture and numbers of blue fire hovered in the air behind him. It was a countdown.
"We don't care what you do to secure a stone. Only that you have one. Those without will be disqualified. Good luck."
The clock ticked down to 2:59.59.
Half the crowd scattered while the other half stood stunned, frozen.
Ai saw the scarred man pushing towards her. A moment later someone slammed into her and she went sprawling to the ground. Feet rained down like hail from all sides. She scrambled towards the outer walls. Thunder cracked behind her followed by screams. The panic rose to a crescendo and Ai rode a wave of panic and people through a pair of stone doors.
Above the doors, a galaxy was inscribed into a black metal plate.